Five steps to make it more likely that such jumps are successful are:
1. Make sure you need to go to the next level. If what you have is still working, delay taking the plunge. "Working" means that there are no negative effects on your customers and you're not losing valuable employees.
2. Make sure you have sufficient resources to complete the changeover. "Resources" means enough money to cover estimated costs and contingencies, enough people to carry out the changes and the material, hardware etc. needed.
3. Plan. Break the project down into manageable jobs. Assign responsibility for the jobs. Schedule the jobs. Assign responsibility for monitoring spending and completion of the jobs.
4. Make sure that there is a mechanism for detecting spending over budget and delays and make sure that everyone knows there is a such a mechanism. "George will let me know if he's spending too much," is not a mechanism. Tracking costs from bank statements is.
5. Set goals for completion at the beginning. When the goals are met, the project is finished. Changes, corrections, optimizations etc. are new projects with new budgets and new schedules. Nothing cripples a small business experiencing rapid growth like an endless improvement project.
So, why get into this kind of process? Your business is moving right along, growing slowly and steadily and making a bit of money. You don't want to do anything risky. Here are ten reasons, from Comfind, why some businesses don't grow and why you need to do certain things to keep your business healthy.
For a more in-depth discussion of this subject try the "Growing Your Own Small Business" course at Suite University.
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